Telugu community, hasdied in New Jersey atthe age of 78. Sastry,Greek steamer in 1961, was inRutgers Hospital with his wifeLakshmi by his bedside when hedied on Aug. 23, the couple’s

48th wedding anniversary.

Sastry, an aeronautical and
mechanical engineer, arrived in
the U.S. under a U.S.-India
agreement to facilitate cultural
and technological changes
between the two nations, a pact
signed by then-President John F.

Kennedy. Sastry was hired by
United Airlines and traveled to
New York aboard the steamship
Perseverance, docking on St.

Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1961.

After a brief training period in
New York he was transferred to
the engineering
base in San
Francisco,
California, after a
brief time in
Washington, D.C.

In San Francisco,
he became engaged
in Bay Area community activities,
organizing events
with Indian-American groups
and providing hospitality for Indian
immigrants who
arrived in the 1960s and 1970s.

Sastry also raised funds for victims of the Indo-Chinese War
and the devastating cyclone in
Andhra Pradesh in 1962.

He was also the catalyst
behind the State Department-sponsored visit of Telugu movie
actor, Akkineni Nageswara Rao,
who was the first of scores of
cultural figures from India
whose visits to the U.S. he
helped facilitate.

Sastry, a staunch Democrat,
also was one of the earliest
Indian-Americans to become
politically involved. He campaigned for President Lyndon
Johnson and California Gov. Pat
Brown, both Democrats.

In the late 1960s, he worked
with Mocherla Bhaskar Rao and
Kalinadhi Sastry to arrange picnics and functions for the small
Telugu community in the San
Francisco Bay Area and northern
California. In 1971, he started
celebrating all Indian national
holidays, organizing various
events and showing movies for
the Telugu community.

He continued toconvene severalmore associations,traveling to NewYork in 1977, to beone of the foundingmembers of theTelugu Associationof North America(TANA) along withGuttikondaRavindranath,Kidambi Raghunathand Kakarla Subba Rao. He laterserved as national vice presidentand cultural committee chair ofTANA. In 1977 he also foundedthe South India Fine ArtsAssociation and the HinduCommunity and Cultural Center,known as the Shiva VishnuTemple or HCCC in Livermore,California, with MuthuramanIyer. He then went on to serve asdirector or chairman of the ShivaVishnu Temple into the 1990s.

In the early 1980s Sastry
founded the Federation of Indo-American Associations of
Northern California and served
as president for five years. At the
time, this was the umbrella
organization of all Indian organizations in the Bay Area.

He was also among the pioneers who organized the early
Indian Independence Day and
Indian Republic day events in
Oakland, building relationships
with political leaders. He would
later become one of the first
Indian-Americans to organize
support for Brown’s campaigns.

In the 1980s, as the pro-Khalistan movement rose to
prominence and began lobbying
Congress, where some lawmakers were calling for cuts in U.S.

development aid to India, Sastry
was asked by the Indian

Consulate in San Francisco andthe Indian Embassy inWashington, D.C. to mediatewith the Sikh community, wherehe was considered a friend and atrusted leader. The Sikh-American activists finally agreedto stop protesting and disruptingIndian functions, particularly onIndependence and RepublicDays, and Sastry was creditedwith having helped convincethem.

In 1978, he worked in concert
with the Indian community in
the Bay Area, the Indian
Embassy, the Indian Consulate
in San Francisco, and his close
friend Mayor George Moscone of
San Francisco to host then-Indian Prime Minister Morarji
Desai. This was the first time an
Indian prime minister had been
hosted in the area.

Sastry followed this up in the
early 1980s by helping organize
the Los Angeles reception for
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
and her sons. During this time he
also arranged for the visit of
Chief Minister N. T. Rama Rao to
Silicon Valley and the Bay Area
and arranged for him to get the
key to the City of San Francisco
from then-mayor and now Sen.

Dianne Feinstein.

In 1984, Sastry was a delegate
to Democratic National
Convention in San Francisco.

During his 52 years in
America, Sastry was promoted
several times by United Airlines.

After retiring from managementthere, he was rehired. His jobtook him to Santa Barbara,California, Seattle, Washington,and Mobile, Alabama, andMiami, Florida. In Mobile,Alabama, he became the presi-dent of the Indo-AmericanForum for Political Education,Alabama Chapter and also jointsecretary of the national IAFPE.He campaigned furiously forPresident Bill Clinton and wasinvited to the White House onseveral occasions. He also cam-paigned at the time he was inFlorida for President BarackObama in 2008 and 2012, andwas also there in the early 1990swhen three young Indian-American congressional candi-dates Ram Uppuluri inTennessee, Peter Mathews inCalifornia and Neil Dhillon inMaryland, made unsuccessfulbids.He later campaigned for AmiBera in California, who waselected to Congress in 2012.Sastry received several awardsand accolades, including theOutstanding Immigrant fromIndia award from the CaliforniaLegislature and East BayInstitute, the Gold and Diamondaward from the Federal AviationAdministration, the UnitedAirlines Community ServiceAward and several awards fromTANA for lifetime service to thecommunity.

Besides his wife, he is survived by sons Dinesh Sastry, also
a longtime Democratic Party
activist, and Manoj Sastry, a
director at Stanford Hospital and
Clinics. His funeral was held at
the Bridgewater Funeral Home
in New Jersey on Aug. 26.